“In­stead of gen­er­al­iz­ing situ­a­tion-spe­cific be­hav­ior to per­son­al­ity (i.e. “Oh, he’s not try­ing to make me feel stupid, that’s just how he talks”), peo­ple as­sume that per­son­al­ity-spe­cific be­hav­ior is situ­a­tional (i.e. “he’s talk­ing like that just to con­fuse me”).”

Those aren’t re­ally mu­tu­ally ex­clu­sive. “Talk­ing like that just to con­fuse his listen­ers is just how he talks”. It could be an at­tri­bu­tion not of any spe­cific mal­ice, but gen­er­al­ized snooti­ness.